The successes and failures of your average girl trying to make a vegan life for herself.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Rustic Onion, Potato, and Blue Cheese Tart

Since we were going to be getting back into Baltimore incredibly late Monday night (more like 2 am Tuesday morning), I had the excellent forsight to take Tuesday off from work. Josh still got up and out early, but I stayed in bed and slept in until almost 10. When I finally got up, we didn't have much in the way of groceries in the house, but luckily we had frozen strawberries to make a delicious strawberry protein shake.

A while later I decided to experiment with a few other random ingredients we had around that need to be used up before the move. First was a Trader Joe's pie crust that's been in the freezer for quite a while. It's not vegan (yeah, it's that old), but I don't like the idea of tossing it either. I decided to make a rustic tart using the pie crust, a few random small potatoes, a red onion, and this vegan blue cheese I picked up on our trip to Pangea Vegan Foods.

I hadn't had a chance to try the blue cheese yet, but wasn't really sure how to eat it. My guess was that it wouldn't taste great on its own - when there's nothing to hide the inevitable "oddness" of fake cheese. So mixing it into mashed potatoes seemed like a great way to try it out.

I made some quick mashed potatoes using the potatoes, rice milk, Earth Balance, the blue cheese, salt, and pepper. While the potatoes were cooking I caramelized the red onion, then layered the potaotes and onion in the center of the pie crust.

For a "rustic" tart, just fold the edges of the crust up, and bake on a baking sheet until the top is golden brown! The same technique works with pretty much any filling, and is so much easier than making a traditional tart in a pie pan.

The result was actually really delicious, and I ended up having two pieces for lunch! You could definitely taste the blue cheese, and it tastes like the real deal. The problem was in the texture - it doesn't melt. Not sure why I would expect nuts to melt, but it's still disturbing when it doesn't.

That evening I headed to crossfit where we did a partner chipper WOD, which means that you work with another person to "chip" away at the workout. You don't have to do every exercise 50-50, but can split it however you and your partner prefer. I paired with a girl named Jaclyn, and we pretty much split the workout evenly, but I know she picked up some slack for me when I needed an extra bit of rest!

Between us we did 300 single under jumps, 90 sit ups, 80 pushups (yeah, I did those on my knees), 70 wall balls (I used 10 pounds while she did 15), 60 pullups (I used a green and red band, while she rocked it with just the red), 50 burpees jumping onto a 25 pound plate, 40 overhead lunges with the 25 pound plate, 30 dead lifts (we both did 85 pounds), 20 cleans (I went down to 45 pounds - can't remember what she did), and 10 push jerks (I stripped off all the weight and just used the 35 pound bar here). It was definitely a crazy intense workout and we finished in just under 30 minutes. (And I spelled her name wrong ... oops. I fixed that after the picture.)

After crossfit I wasn't too hungry, so I went out with Josh to get him a falafel sandwich and I just picked up a bag of vegan Doritos - spicy sweet chili. I know, I know ... not a healthy dinner. Not even really a dinner. But they were a nice TV snack while we watched Breaking Bad :) ﻿